Marmalade

By Elizabeth Field

Elizabeth Field is a freelance writer who wrote her Master's in Gastronomy dissertation on the history of marmalade.

Overview

When English explorer Robert Scott ventured to the Antarctic in 1911-12, he carried among his provisions a can of Frank Cooper’s Vintage Oxford marmalade. So did Sir Edmund Hillary when he scaled Mt. Everest in 1953. Even the fictional James Bond, the epitome of English suave, has his daily breakfast regimen of a boiled egg, whole-wheat toast with Jersey butter and Frank Cooper’s marmalade, with very strong coffee. The Welsh travel writer Jan Morris, who once called grape jelly “the worst of American civilization, worse than the electric chair,” accompanies her rambles with her own jar of English marmalade.

At once bitter, sweet, chunky-textured and semi-liquid, orange marmalade is more than a breakfast spread. It embodies a tradition that has lasted some 250 years and which extends to nearly every nation that was colonized by the English, though the tradition bypassed the United States in part because of the scarcity of the main ingredient, bitter oranges, and cultural culinary preferences. Marmalade appears metaphorically in a vast range of English literature and popular culture spanning from Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland,” where Alice grabs an empty jar as she hurtles down the rabbit hole, to the Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” where “marmalade skies” evoke a hallucinogenic 1960s acid trip. Marmalade is to Britain as ketchup, and well, grape jelly, are to Americans. A necessity, an identifier and a constant reminder of home, marmalade is part of the British psyche.

Early Marmalade History

Marmalade began more than 2,000 years ago as a solid cooked quince and honey paste similar to today’s membrillo, the Spanish quince paste that is typically served with sheep-milk cheeses. Known as melomeli in ancient Greece and melimela in Latin, it was used both as a preserve and a reputed remedy for digestive complaints. The Portuguese took up the product, perhaps via the Arabs, substituting sugar for the honey, around the 10th century. They called it “marmelada,” which derives from the Portuguese marmelo, or quince.

The first shipments of marmelada, packed in wooden boxes, arrived in London in 1495. Fabulously expensive and imbued with purported medical and aphrodisiac powers, it was a popular gift among noble families.

Simultaneously, a northern European version of a cooked quince and sugar preserve called alternately chardequince, condoignac, cotignac or quiddony sprung up. Flavored with red wine, honey, cinnamon stick and powdered ginger, it was taken at the end of a medieval feast, along with pears, nuts, sugar-coated aniseed and other sweetmeats whose purpose, harkening back to the ancient Greeks, was to ease an upset stomach.

Versions of quince marmalade became a staple of “banquetting stuffe,” the elegant display of sweetmeats and confectionery served at the end of 16th- and 17th-century English feasts. Rolled and twisted into hearts and knots or flattened and then stamped with flowers and tarts, pale and rose-colored quince pastes were as decorative as they were therapeutic. Food historian Ivan Day offers period recipes and photos of these creations on his website.

Scotland’s Contributions

In the 18th century, the Scots pioneered the switchover from quince to orange marmalade. Many regions of the country were too cold for quince trees to flourish, and imported Seville (bitter) oranges had been available since the late 15th century. Cooks were now producing a thinner form of marmalade, stored in pots or glasses, achieved through a shorter cooking time. A succession of Scottish cookbook authors including Elizabeth Cleland, Hannah Robertson, Susanna Maciver, J.Caird and Margaret Dods, turned marmalade-making into an art form, introducing the term “chips” for shreds of orange rind, and refining techniques to produce marmalades that ranged from dark and chunky to transparent and golden.

More significant perhaps than the switch from quince to orange marmalade, was the new Scottish pattern of serving marmalade as a breakfast and tea-time food rather than an after-dinner digestive. This coincided with the evolution of the legendary British breakfast, which in its 19th-century heyday could consist of eggs in many guises, bacon, sausage, broiled mutton chops, stewed kidneys and smoked fish with crisp toast and an array of rich breakfast cakes. Orange marmalade, honey and jam were ubiquitous accompaniments.

While the “invention” of orange marmalade in 1797 is sometimes erroneously attributed to Janet Keiller, a Dundee grocer’s wife, she was among the first of a series of late 18th- and early 19th-century Scottish grocer’s wives who established commercial marmalade factories. Demand for store-bought marmalade had risen, perhaps facilitated by the growing number of women working outside the home.

By the late 19th century, numerous British firms produced marmalades for every preference, ranging from Robertson’s fine-cut Golden and Silver Shred to Frank Cooper’s coarse-cut “Oxford” marmalade, to Chivers’ Olde English, which was marketed as “The Aristocrat of Marmalades.” Wilkin of Tiptree, an English fruit conserving company founded in 1885, was producing some 27 different marmalades by the turn of the 20th century, according to the preeminent marmalade scholar, C. Anne Wilson, who authored “The Book of Marmalade.”

Marmalade Diaspora

With its long keeping qualities, due to its high sugar content, commercial marmalade proved to be an excellent export. As the British Empire expanded during the 19th century, seafarers brought homemade and commercial marmalades, as well as recipes, to colonies around the globe.

Adapting these recipes to utilize local fruits, West Indian cooks used a preponderance of limes for marmalade. Ex-patriot Britons made “country marmalade” in India from pomelos, the thick-skinned and rather coarse ancestor of the grapefruit. Australians used sweet, bitter and mandarin oranges and lemons, and later, citrons, kumquats and grapefruits. New Zealanders today often combine grapefruits and sweet oranges, while South African cooks utilize a wide assortment of local citrus fruit.

Anglophone Canada inherited a strong Seville orange marmalade tradition from its many English and Scottish immigrants.

One of the only former colonies that didn’t adopt the marmalade tradition as enthusiastically was the United States. A combination of factors, including the ready domestic availability of sweet oranges, which precluded the need for importing bitter oranges and development of a distinctly American cuisine, were responsible.

Eighteenth-century British recipes for dessert marmalades had initially traveled to North America, but by the mid-19h century these recipes began to be supplanted by recipes using American ingredients. Americans were making sweeter preserves made with local ingredients such as strawberries, apples, pears, and cherries. It is hard to know if this taste for sweetness developed because of the scarcity of bitter oranges, or because of some innate national physiological taste preferences, a theory that has been argued by some writers.

In The Boston Cooking-School Cookbook (1899)by the popular Boston cook, Fannie Farmer, 18 different breakfast menus do not mention marmalade.

An Enduring Tradition

After a post-World War II decline in consumption, marmalade is now undergoing a comeback in Britain. Many home cooks continue to make their own, often using generations-old recipes. Because Seville oranges are only available for a few weeks in January and February, marmalade-making is a seasonal ritual. The enticing aroma of bubbling brews of oranges and sugar on the stove and the glow of newly filled jars of marmalade signal the coming of brighter days during the short, dark winter days.

The annual World’s Original Marmalade Festival held each February at Dalemain Estate, in Penrith, Cumbria, England, is to marmalade lovers as California’s Gilroy Garlic Festival is to garlic aficionados. A paean to British marma-lade culture, hundreds of home cooks compete for titles in categories ranging from classic Seville Orange marmalade to the more eccentric Clergy Marmalade, for ministers, priests, rabbis or anyone associated with a religious group.

Making Marmalade at Home

To make classic orange marmalade in the British style, you will need Seville (bitter) oranges. They may be hard to find. (Ask the produce manager at your local specialty food market to order them.) Because it is difficult to find Seville oranges, newcomers might want to start with a fragrant Meyer lemon marmalade. If you use ordinary sweet oranges, be sure to include some lemons to temper their sweetness.

You will need to have on hand a kitchen scale and a jelly or deep-fat-frying thermometer, as well as a large, heavy nonreactive pan. Marmalade-making is all about ratio: an equal weight of fruit, sugar and water produces a clear jelly with a slightly loose “set,” and a clear, bright flavor.

To make about four 12-ounce jars, scrub 6 Seville oranges in hot water to remove any wax film. Halve and juice the oranges, reserving the juice. Scrape out each juiced half and reserve all the seeds and pulp. Cut the rind into thin slices or quarter-inch cubes. (Cutting by hand is preferable; if using a food processor be sure not to over-process into a puree.) Turn out the reserved pulp and seeds onto a doubled square of cheesecloth and tie it closed. Using a kitchen scale, weigh the rind with the bundle and add enough water to the juice to bring it to an equal weight. Simmer the rind and the bundle in the liquid in the pan. Cook until the rind is completely tender -- about forty-five minutes to an hour.

Twenty minutes or so before the rind is done, warm an equal weight of sugar in a baking pan set in the middle rack of a low (275-300°) oven for 15 - 20 minutes. When the rind is cooked, remove the cheesecloth bundle, scraping off any bits of rind, and squeeze it gently over the pot. Add the heated sugar and boil until liquid is golden and thick and the temperature reaches 222° on a candy thermometer, about 30 - 45 minutes. To check whether marmalade is thick enough to set, spoon about 1 tablespoon onto a small plate, transfer to the freezer for 2 minutes, then tilt plate; if the marmalade’s surface "wrinkles," it's done. Spoon hot marmalade into 4 hot, sterilized 12-oz. canning jars. Set lids on top and seal. Set jars aside to cool completely, then store in a cool, dark place for at least 1 month before serving. Marmalade will keep, unopened, for up to 1 year.

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